n 

'ataloged 

MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 


DELIVERED  BY 


JUDGE  GEO.  HILLYER 


AT 


MILLEDGEVILLE,  GA, 


APRIL  26,  1913  . 


A  Plea  for  Justice  to  Seceded  States ; 
To  the  Confederate  Veteran ; 
And  to  the  Negro 


Duke 


This  address  leads  up  to  and  concludes 
with  a  new  and  very  practical  view  of  the 
Pension  Problem. 

With  the  Compliments  of 

GEO.  HILLYER 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2015 


https://archive.org/details/memorialaddressdOOhill 


JUDGE  HILLYER'S  ADDRESS. 

I  shall  say  some  things  different  from  what  you  ordi- 
narily hear  from  a  chosen  speaker  at  a  Confederate  Reunion. 
The  new  matter,  however,  will  be  reserved  until  towards 
the  last,  for  I  want  to  begin  by  making  some  allusion,  speak- 
ing out  of  a  full  heart,  to  the  grand  historic  incidents 
crowded  into  the  days  of  the  war  and  followed  by  the  amaz- 
ing developments  of  the  fifty  years  that  have  intervened 
from  then  until  now. 

We  have  here  before  us  survivors  of  the  historic  and 
heroic  struggle  of  the  60's.  There  is  nobody  living  on  the 
face  of  the  earth  who  can  claim  any  higher  honors  than  the 
grand  men  who  fought  with  Lee  and  Johnson,  with  Beaure- 
gard and  Hood  in  that  tremendous  struggle,  and  for  the 
younger  generation  it  is  inspiring  to  look  into  their  faces 
and  remember  their  deeds.  There  is  poetry  in  the  very 
thought  that  these  men  make  a  link  between  those  days 
which  tried  men's  souls  and  the  pleasant  times  of  ease  and 
plenty. 

I  have  been  here  a  good  long  time  myself,  and  my  own  rec- 
ollection goes  back  to  just  two  persons  who,  in  my  child- 
hood and  youth,  could  tell  me  of  things  that  happened  of 
which  they  were  personal  witnesses  during  the  Revolution- 
ary war.  One  was  an  old  lady,  who  died  in  1855,  when  I  was 
20  years  old.  She  lived  about  a  day's  journey  from  York- 
town,  in  Virginia,  and  was  raised  there.  She  lived  there  dur- 
ing the  time  that  Yorktown  underwent  the  celebrated  his- 
toric siege  by  the  Americans  under  General  Washington 
and  the  French  fleet  under  Count  DeEstainge.  I  have  heard 
her  tell  of  seeing  the  curve  made  by  the  shells  thrown  at 
night  from  the  French  fleet  into  the  British  fort,  and  of 
hearing  the  boom  of  the  cannon  whenever  the  air  was  still 
during  all  the  time  that  the  siege  lasted.  I  have  heard  her 
tell  of  a  messenger  who,  at  the  last,  came  galloping  through 
the  village  where  they  lived,  and  proclaimed  in  loud  voice 
that  Cornwallis,  the  British  commander,  had  surrendered; 
and  then  the  messenger  galloped  on  with  the  glad  news  to 
the  North. 


In  the  same  period  of  my  life  I  knew  an  old,  old  man,  who 
lived  in  the  same  part  of  Virginia,  and  I  have  heard  him  tell 
about  a  certain  occasion  when  there  was  a  wedding  in  the 
neighborhood  where  he  lived,  and  which  was  attended  by 
General  Washington.  This  old  man,  though  a  boy  at  the 
time,  was  with  his  family  a  guest  at  the  wedding,  and  he 
distinctly  remembered  having  been  presented  to  General 
Washington,  and  having  shaken  hands  with  him. 

These  two  old  people  were  fine  characters,  without  refer- 
ence to  the  special  or  particular  incidents  I  have  mentioned, 
but  there  was  an  added  and  very  real  glory  in  the  fact  that 
they  formed  a  distinct  and  unbroken  link  which  brought 
down  Yorktown  and  General  Washington  to  the  day  in  which 
I  heard  them  relate  the  incidents  mentioned,  and  there  is  a 
continued  interest — a  very  real  interest,  in  the  fact  that  I 
have  the  privilege  of  repeating  and  perpetuating  them  be- 
fore you  today.  If  either  one  of  those  old  people  could  be  pro- 
duced here  on  this  stage,  not  a  human  being  in  this  audience 
would  fail  to  rise  and  take  off  his  hat  and  shout  as  this  warm 
hearted  and  patriotic  people  heard  their  words  and  looked 
into  their  shining  faces. 

You  have  before  you  these  gray-headed  veterans,  deci- 
mated and  thinned  in  numbers  as  they  are,  but  among  them 
probably  there  is  not  one  who  has  not  looked  into  the  faces 
of  Joe  Wheeler,  N.  B.  Forrest,  Clement  A.  Evans,  Alfred  H. 
Colquitt,  John  B.  Gordon,  James  Longstreet,  Braxton 
Bragg,  Joseph  E.  Johnston,  John  B.  Hood,  Ranee  Wright, 
Tige  Anderson,  H.  L.  Benning,  George  Doles,  W.  T.  Wofford, 
Phil  Cook,  Wade  Hampton,  Stephen  D.  Lee,  Stonewall  Jack- 
son or  Robert  E.  Lee. 

Oh!  If  the  heroic  deeds  in  which  they  were  actors  could 
be  perpetuated  on  canvas  and  in  stone,  or  pictured  in  the 
world's  real  pctetry,  posterity  could  have  no  greater  treasure ; 
but  even  without  that,  the  splendid  deeds  of  these  men  are 
written  in  the  hearts  of  their  countrymen.  History  is  more 
and  more  coming  to  the  true  standard  of  doing  them  justice, 
and  they  will  live  in  the  hearts  of  all  who  are  good  and  true 
of  the  human  race,  so  long  as  civilization  shall  last.  They 
were  kind  and  gentle  as  well  as  strong  and  brave.  I  wish  I 
had  time  to  tell  you  of  incidents  of  which  I  was  myself  a 
witness,  to  show  both  the  goodness,  the  tenderness  and  the 


2 


bravery  of  the  Confederate  soldier.  How  proud  Baldwin 
county  is  of  her  General  George  Doles  and  his  brother,  Er- 
nest ;  Capt.  T.  F.  Newell  and  his  brother,  Isaac ;  Capt.  Louis 
Kenan  and  his  brother,  the  surgeon,  and  all  the  roster  of 
her  noble  heroes ! 

I  went  to  the  war  with  a  company  from  Walton  county, 
which  formed  a  part  of  the  9th  Georgia  regiment.  In  the 
same  regiment  was  a  gallant  company  from  Baldwin  county. 
I  would  not  disparage  those  who  went  to  the  war  in  other 
companies,  but  as  I  recollect  it,  one  of  the  first  from  Baldwin 
was  that  splendid  company  commanded  by  Captain  Beck, 
afterwards  promoted  to  colonel  of  the  regiment.  In  the 
same  company  was  Captain  W.  T.  Conn,  still  spared  as  an 
honor  and  a  blessing  to  us  all.  There  were  the  two  Fairs, 
Joe  Tucker,  Isaac  Sherman,  and  oh,  the  whole  gallant  band 
who  sprang  to  arms  and  went  out  with  Conn  and  Beck ! 

They  are  all  gone,  so  far  as  I  know,  but  Captain  Conn,  who 
smiles  on  us,  and  you  smile  as  you  look  into  his  face  today. 
May  he  long  be  with  us  in  bodily  presence,  and  his  noble  ex- 
ample will  remain  an  honor  and  a  guide  for  coming  genera- 
tions. I  remember  once,  just  after  a  hot  fight  we  had  gone 
through,  he  showed  me  a  place  where  a  bullet  from  an  ex- 
ploded shrapnel  had  struck  him  just  below  the  knee.  It 
made  a  great  black  spot,  but  did  not  break  the  skin.  I 
reckon,  though,  he  remembers  it  and  how  it  felt,  to  this 
day.  But  it  was  God's  providence  that  the  injury  was  no 
greater. 

I  remember  once  seeing  Joe  Tucker,  when  out  on  the 
picket  line  he  was  daring  the  enemy's  batteries.  They  shot 
at  him  with  the  cannon  time  after  time,  and  at  last  a  shell 
exploded  just  in  front  of  him.  There  was  a  cloud  of  dust 
and  smoke,  and  we  thought  Joe  was  gone,  but  he  scampered 
out  from  the  wreck  and  dropped  into  his  rifle-pit  unhurt. 

As  just  stated,  however,  there  is  not  time  to  indulge  in 
individual  acts  and  instances.  I  sum  it  all  up  with  the  state- 
ment that  when  we  went  to  the  war,  it  was  quite  generally 
calculated  that  the  yankees  would  outnumber  us  three  to  one, 
and  the  task  we  undertook  was  deliberate  that  we  would 
fight  three  to  one.  Now,  I  claim  no  more  than  history  when 
I  say  that  we  did  fight  three  to  one  and  the  South  whipped 
three  to  one,  and  we  would  have  gained  our  independence,  but 


the  fact  turned  out  to  be  that  the  enemy  had  more  than  four 
to  one,  and  it  was  for  that  reason,  and  that  reason  alone,  that 
the  Confederacy  met  with  failure  and  defeat.  The  official 
records  show  that  there  were  enlisted  on  the  Southern 
side,  counting  and  including  everybody — teamsters,  musi- 
cians, hospital  nurses,  and  all  others — all  told,  not  more  than 
660,000.  The  records  show  that  on  the  other  side  were  enlist- 
ed something  over  2,800,000.  It  was  because  they  outnum- 
bered us  and  had  the  greater  strength  that  the  South  failed, 
and  not  for  any  lack  of  devotion  to  duty,  or  want  of  faith  or 
yielding  of  spirit  on  our  part.  The  war  ended  as  it  did  be- 
cause we  were  outnumbered  and  over-powered — ^for  that 
reason  and  that  alone — but  we  accepted  the  result  in  good 
faith  and  swore  allegiance  to  the  government,  and  here  in 
this  sacred  presence  I  make  bold  to  say  that  the  United 
States  has  no  more  loyal  citizens  and  will  find  among  them  no 
more  loyal  and  efficient  defenders  agaist  every  attack  than 
the  people  who  inhabit  the  territory  once  included  within 
the  limits  of  the  Southern  Confederacy.  There  has  been, 
every  once  in  a  while,  just  a  little  talk  that  possibly  some- 
body at  the  North  would  not  stand  it  if  the  government  did 
thus  and  so  about  the  tariff  or  currency,  or  some  matter  of 
public  policy.  Well,  let  it  be  understood  that  the  right  of 
secession  was  settled  by  the  war,  although  it  had  never  been 
settled  until  Appomattox.  It  was  settled  at  Appomattox 
and  it  remained  settled.  If  anybody  at  the  North  wants  to 
change  sides  on  that  question  and  thinks  they  can  secede  on 
account  of  something  done  by  the  United  States,  let  them  try 
it,  and  then  let  Uncle  Sam  call  for  volunteers  at  the  South  to 
go  there  and  reckon  with  them  about  it,  and  you  will  see 
what  would  happen. 

2. 

The  Women  of  the  Confederacy. 

But  the  Confederate  soldiers  were  not  the  only  heroes  in 
the  trying  times  of  the  war.  The  women  of  the  South  won 
laurels  and  were  entitled  to  praise.  Just  think  of  it !  How 
almost  universally  the  men  left  their  homes  and  went  to  the 
war,  leaving  the  women  and  children  by  themselves.  Some- 
times for  ten  miles  around  there  could  not  be  found  a  soli- 


4 


tary  ablebodied  man,  outside  of  the  sick  and  the  aged ;  a  few- 
doctors  and  preachers,  or  something  Hke  that.  Governor 
McDaniel  once  told  me  that  in  the  county  of  Walton,  where 
he  and  I  both  lived,  there  were  first  and  last  something  more 
than  1,500  enlisted  men  who  went  to  the  war,  and  yet  that 
county  usually  voted  at  elections  only  about  1,100.  In  Bald- 
win county  a  similar  comparison  stands  equally  honorable. 

I  give  you  these  two  counties  merely  as  specimens.  It 
was  very  generally  true  throughout  the  South  that  the  coun- 
ties sent  more  men  into  the  war  than  they  had  voters.  The 
reason  for  this  was,  that  all  the  boys  shouldered  their  mus- 
kets and  joined  their  fathers  and  brothers  in  the  camp  as 
soon  as  they  arrived  at  the  early  age  of  16  or  17.  And  yet 
the  noble  women  thus  left  behind  with  the  children  and  the 
negroes,  continued  to  cultivate  the  land  and  raise  the  crops 
and  keep  the  peace  and  make  food  for  the  armies,  and  all  the 
time  never  a  whimper  of  discouragement  or  despair  was 
heard  from  the  women,  but  with  more  than  Spartan  courage 
and  heroism  they  bore  their  trials,  stifled  their  tears,  ever 
giving  words  of  encouragement  and  cheer  to  their  fathers 
and  brothers  and  husbands  who  fought  for  home  and  native 
land  against  what  I  cannot  help  saying  was  a  war  of 
invasion,  violative  of  principle  and  humanity,  and  gainst 
which  every  inhabitant  of  the  South  not  only  had  the  right 
to  resist,  but  against  which  it  was  his  duty  to  resist.  The 
hearts  of  the  women  are  in  the  Southern  cause  to  this  day. 
They  are  here  to  give  words  of  encouragement  and  cheer  to 
these  noble  veterans.  They  are  here  to  strew  flowers  on  the 
graves  of  those  who  have  gone  before,  and  may  the  time  nev- 
er come  when  they  will  themselves  admit  that  their  fathers 
were  wrong  in  the  struggle  or  cease  to  teach  their  children 
to  honor  and  revere  the  names  of  the  men  who  fought  for  it 
and  died  in  it,  or  those  w^ho  yet  survive  that  struggle,  and 
continue  to  honor  and  revere  it. 

3. 

The  Origin  of  Secession. 

Secession  was  a  New  England  idea.  I  cannot  elaborate 
this,  but  I  assert  it  as  a  matter  of  history  that  in  the  first 


5 


40  years  after  the  adoption  of  the  United  States  constitution 
the  notion  was  generally  held  in  New  England  that  the  com- 
pact of  union  was  voluntary,  and  that  a  state  had  the  right 
to  withdraw  from  the  Union  whenever  it  was  mistreated  or 
oppressed  by  the  government  and  that  the  state  wao  to  be 
the  judge  as  to  whether  the  cause  for  secession  was  su^li- 
cient  in  the  particular  instance.  Josiah  Qunicey  was  a  not- 
able instance  of  this  among  New  England  public  men,  and 
it  found  culmination  in  what  is  called  the  ''Hart- 
ford Convention,"  which  was  held  during  the  war  with  Eng- 
land of  1812.  It  is  almost  a  certainty  that  New  England 
would  have  then  seceded  from  the  Union  and  set  up  for 
herself  just  like  the  Confederacy  tried  to  do  50  years  later., 
if  it  had  not  happened  that  the  United  States  made  peace 
with  England  at  the  close  of  the  year  1814.  During  his 
time,  the  Southern  states  usually  held  the  contrary  view. 
The  Southern  states  had  gloried  in  the  Union  and  in  loyalty 
and  every  feeling  of  fraternity  towards  their  Northern 
brethren.  A  notable  instance  of  this  was  when  the  Chick- 
asaws  and  other  Indians  and  the  white  trappers  about  the 
year  1748  defeated  a  French  army  that  was  moving  from 
New  Orleans  annd  Mobile,  then  held  as  French  territory, 
towards  Canada  for  the  purpose  of  meeting  a  similar  army 
under  the  command  of  Vincennes,  that  was  descending  the 
Mississippi  for  the  purpose  of  uniting  the  French  dominion 
in  Louisiana  with  the  French  dominion  in  Canada,  the  lat- 
ter being  then  also  held  by  the  French  monarchy.  These 
Indans  and  trappers  defeated  and  destroyed  teh  col- 
umn that  was  marching  north  from  the  mouth  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi and  Mobile,  and  also  lying  in  wait,  they  defeated 
and  annihilated  the  French  column  from  the  North  under: 
Vincennes,  the  French  commander,  who  was  killed.  Both 
these  battles,  and  especially  the  latter  were  fought  mainly 
with  powder  sent  out  from  the  then  infant  colony  of  Sa- 
vannah, Georgia,  and  both  these  battles  were  fought  on 
what  was  then  Georgia  territory,  the  state,  in  its  gen- 
erosity, having  some  years  later  ceded  what  is  now  Ala- 
bama and  Mississippi,  as  a  territory  at  that  time,  to  the 
United  States. 


6 


When  the  Revolutionary  war  commenced,  a  company  of 
gallant  young  men  in  Savannah  captured  a  British  ship  in 
the  harbor,  loaded  with  ammunition,  mainly  powder.  In- 
stead of  throwing  the  powder  into  the  sea  like  the  Boston- 
ians  did  the  cargo  of  tea  that  we  hear  so  much  about,  these 
young  Georgians  brought  the  powder  on  shore  for  future 
use.  Large  portions  of  that  powder  were  sent  to  the  North 
when  the  Revolutionary  war  with  England  began  in  1774 
and  1775.  It  was  with  that  powder  largely  and  perhaps 
it  may  be  said  with  that  powder  mainly  that  General  Wash- 
ington supplied  his  batteries  in  the  siege  of  Boston,  and  with 
it  drove  the  British  out  of  Boston. 

Go  where  you  will,  through  the  pages  of  the  history  of 
our  country,  down  to  the  time  when  the  war  of  seccession 
began,  in  the  contests  with  England ;  in  the  Indian  wars  from 
one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other ;  and  in  the  Mexican  war ; 
in  every  crisis,  the  blood  of  the  South  was  freely 
poured  out,  and  Southern  men  were  just  as  ready  to  die  in 
defense  of  the  Union,  whether  the  theatre  of  the  contest 
was  north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  or  south  of  it.  But 
when  through  the  unfortunate  quarrel  over  the  question  of 
slavery  the  two  sections  became  estranged,  and  the  guaran- 
tees of  the  rights  of  the  South,  plainly  written  in  the  consti- 
tution, were  trampled  under  foot  by  the  Northern  states 
(more  by  the  Northern  states  than  by  the  national  govern- 
ment itself),  the  South,  despairing  of  obtaining  justice  in 
the  Union,  resolved  to  secede.  Her  people  did  what,  accord- 
ing to  ideas  conceived  and  understood  up  to  that  time,  she 
had  a  right  to  do.  It  was  a  crisis  of  which  she  had  a  right 
to  inquire  and  decide  for  herself,  and  she  broke  no  law  and 
committed  no  crime  when  she  decided  the  merits  of  the  quar- 
rel in  her  own  favor,  and  when  the  Northern  armies  invaded 
her  territory,  her  sons  shouldered  their  muskets  and  manned 
her  cannon  in  her  own  defense. 

I  have  shown  that  the  cause  of  the  war  was  not  any  overt 
act  or  aggression  on  the  part  of  the  South,  but  because  the 
North  violated  the  constitution  herself  at  the  beginning 
with  reference  to  the  grounds  of  the  dispute,  and  then 
wrongfully  invaded  Southern  territory.  The  South  acted 
on  the  defensive  and  was  in  the  right  in  the  quarrel  from 


7 


the  beginning  to  the  end.  It  was  the  North  that  broke  the 
constitution  and  the  law.  The  South  was  defending  law  and 
home.  In  the  real  essence  of  the  quarrel,  it  was  their  re- 
bellion and  our  secession.  But  as  I  said  before  ,the  war  set- 
tled the  quarrel — settled  it  forever — and  the  living  issue  is, 
what  shall  now  be  done  about  it? 

4. 

The  Colored  People. 

But  before  I  answer  that  I  must  call  attention  to  another 
factor  that  exists  in  the  problem.  The  colored  people  were 
brought  to  this  country  by  the  British  and  the  Yankees. 
They  were  not  brought  here  by  the  Southern  people.  In 
that  magnificent  address  by  Gen.  Henry  R.  Jackson  in  the 
Capitol  of  Georgia  some  years  before  his  death,  the  proof 
is  conclusively  made  that  from  the  time  when  Columbus 
discovered  America  down  to  Appomattox  there  is  no  record 
and  no  proof  of  any  solitary  instance  of  a  Southern  born 
man  ever  having  trod  the  deck  of  a  slave  ship  that  brought 
negroes  from  Africa  to  America.  But  history  shows  that 
in  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  of  England,  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  16th  and  the  beginning  of  the  17th  century,  she 
was  personally,  and  as  monarch,  deeply  interested  in  the 
slave  traffic.  At  the  treaty  of  Utrecht,  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  16th  century  she  entered  into  a  treaty  with  Spain  by 
which  the  British  government  obligated  itself  to  the 
Spanish  king  that  they  would  protect  and  defend  those 
abominable  slave-catching  enterprises  on  the  coast  of  Af- 
rica, for  capturing  negroes  in  their  native  wilds,  bringing 
them  across  the  ocean  in  slave  ships  in  chains,  and  selling 
them  mainly  to  the  Spanish  and  Dutch  colonies  and  to 
some  extent  to  the  English  colonies  of  what  is  now  the 
United  States,  including  every  one  of  the  New  Eng- 
land states,  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  Con- 
necticut and  Rhode  Island  territory  not  excepted,  and  that 
the  number  of  Africans  thus  caught  in  the  wilds  of  their 
native  continent,  and  brought  to  America  in  chains  and  sold 
into  slavery,  should  amount  to  not  less  than  125,000  in  num- 
ber.   See  an  account  of  this  transaction  in  the  first  volume 


8 


of  Stevens'  History  of  Georgia  (I  mean  not  Alex  Stephens, 
but  Dr.  William  B.  Stevens). 

Queen  Anne  of  England,  who  came  along  nearly  a  cen- 
tury later  in  English  history,  was  also  a  stockholder  in  a 
slave  trade  corporation  for  catching  wild  Africans  and 
bringing  them  to  this  country  and  selling  them  into  slavery. 
In  later  days  the  slave  trade,  up  to  and  even  after  the  Rev- 
olutionary war,  was  fostered  and  carried  on  with  headquar- 
ters at  places  on  the  New  England  coast,  and  the  celebrated 
Quaker,  William  Penn,  though  not  engaged  in  the  slave 
trade,  or  the  wicked  enterprise  of  catching  wild  Africans  on 
their  native  continent  and  bringing  them  to  this  country, 
nevertheless  bought  and  owned  slaves,  and  died  a  slave- 
holder. 

Now  during  all  this  tirtie,  our  own  beloved  Georgia  had 
clean  hands  on  this  subject.  Her  governing  body  not  only 
prohibited  the  slave  trade  from  Africa  across  the  ocean, 
but  from  one  colony  into  another,  and  prohibited  the  owner- 
ship of  slaves  in  any  form  or  by  anybody  on  Georgia  terri- 
tory. I  make  bold  to  say  that  Georgia  was  the  first  civil- 
ized government  on  earth  in  the  history  of  the  human  race 
since  Adam  came  out  of  the  Garden  of  Eden,  that  ever  not 
only  abolished  but  absolutely  prohibited  slavery  either  do- 
mestic or  foreign.  In  the  march  of  events  over  which  her 
people  had  no  control,  slavery  as  a  domestic  institution  af- 
terwards came  into  existence  on  Georgia  territory,  and  the 
Northern  people  sold  most  of  their  slaves  because  not  profit- 
able in  that  cold  climate,  sold  them  to  the  South  where  the 
climate  was  better  suited,  and  gradually  it  came  about  by 
change  of  sentiment  that  the  Northern  states  led  off  in 
abolishing  and  prohibiting  slavery.  In  the  meantime,  large 
numbers  of  negroes  had  been  congregated  in  the  South, 
brought  here  by  outsiders,  and  the  burden  was  upon  the 
Southern  people.  Now  I  make  the  claim  that  no  nation  on 
earth,  since  the  world  began,  has  a  prouder  record  in  deal- 
ing with  a  problem  like  this  in  the  interests  of  kindness  and 
humanity,  than  that  of  the  Southern  people.  In  fact,  the 
Southern  people  have  always  shown  a  genius  for  govern- 
ment, including  the  government  of  inferior  races,  or  of  oth- 
er races  whether  inferior  or  not.  The  Indians  who  came  in 
contact  with  the  Northern  people  were  in  the  main  exter- 


9 


minated.  Where  are  the  old  Algonquins  and  the  Pequoits, 
the  Delawares,  the  Senecas  and  all  the  Six  Nations?  If 
they  had  been  treated  with  the  humanity,  and  yet  governed 
with  wisdom  and  firmness,  thousands  of  them  would  have 
been  here  yet,  just  like  the  Seminoles,  Creeks,  Cherokees 
and  Chocktaws  of  the  South.  I  have  seen  it  somewhere 
stated,  and  it  is  probably  true,  that  today  the  Creeks  and 
Cherokees,  the  Indians  whose  ancestors  once  inhabited  what 
is  now  the  territory  of  Georgia,  are  per  capita  the  richest 
races  of  people  on  earth. 

Now,  how  did  the  people  of  the  South  treat  the  negroes? 
I  was  thirty  years  old  when  emancipation  came ;  I  was  well 
acquainted  all  over  the  state,  and  can  speak  from  a  wide 
experience.  I  never  saw  or  heard  of  but  one  negro  that 
died  of  consumption.  Just  one  and  no  more.  I  never  saw 
or  heard  of  but  one  negro  that  went  crazy.  Why  was  this  ? 
Why,  it  was  because  in  slavery  times  our  laws  were  humane 
and  kind.  The  negroes  were  well  fed,  well  housed  and  well 
governed.  Liquor  was  kept  away  from  them.  I  never 
knew  or  heard  of  a  solitary  circumstance  of  any  negro  ever 
having  starved  or  materially  suffered  for  want  of  food — 
good  wholesome  food  and  plenty  of  it — and  I  do  not  believe 
that  anybody  else  can  truthfully  tell  of  any  such  instance. 
The  negroes  were  taught  religion.  They  were  encouraged 
habitually  and  universally  to  attend  the  white  churches. 
Usually  the  white  preacher  preached  to  the  white  people 
in  the  forenoon  and  the  negroes  sat  in  the  gallery  or  on 
benches  towards  the  back  part  of  the  church  prepared  for 
them.  In  the  afternoon  the  same  preacher  preached  to 
the  colored  people  in  the  main  auditorium  of  the  church,  and 
the  white  people,  such  as  wanted  to  do  so,  sat  in  the  gal- 
lery. The  negroes  were  encouraged  to  attend  family  pray- 
ers at  the  family  residences  of  their  masters,  and  the  Chris- 
tianity that  they  learned  was  the  same  pure  religion — the 
religion  of  the  new  testament — adhered  to  by  their  owners. 
The  people  of  the  South  were  a  religious  people.  It  was  true 
then  as  is  true  yet,  (though  perhaps  more  so  then  than 
now)  that  every  neighborhood  or  nearly  every  neighbor- 
hood had  its  Methodist  or  Baptist  or  Presbyterian  church, 
and  I  used  to  say  that  when  traveling  about  in  country  dis- 


10 


tricts  on  a  still  day,  any  church  that  had  a  bell  as  big  and 
as  loud  as  the  one  that  hung  in  the  chapel  at  Old  Penfield, 
where  Mercer  University  used  to  be,  could  make  its  pres- 
ence known  by  the  ringing  of  that  bell  half  way  the  dis- 
tance to  another  church,  nearly  anywhere,  all  over  the 
South.  It  was  almost  universal  that  every  family  either 
had  its  principal  persons  as  members  in  some  church,  or 
adhered  to  religious  thought  and  belief.  This  was  all 
taught  to  the  negroes  and  they  learned  it.  No  man  can 
write  about  those  good  old  days  and  tell  the  truth,  unless 
he  says  that  now  when  masters  and  slaves  are  nearly  all 
dead  and  gone  they  were  brothers  in  the  churches  in  this 
life,  and  white  and  black,  if  they  went  to  heaven,  are  to- 
gether in  eternity,  just  like  they  were  here  on  earth. 

I  am  saying  this  because  I  want  to  impress  on  everybody 
the  sincerest  belief  that  the  old  negro  of  before  the  war  was 
quite  a  different  person  from  many  of  the  new  negroes  that 
we  have  since  the  war,  though  the  latter  are  nothing  like 
as  bad  as  they  are  often  painted.  The  ante-bellum  negro 
is  entitled  to  be  looked  upon  with  kindness,  and  in  what  I 
am  going  to  say  I  mean  to  express  a  sentiment  of  kindness, 
to  do  an  act  of  kindness  towards  the  old-time  negro,  and  I 
want  everybody  to  feel  and  to  know  that  what  I  am  going 
to  suggest  about  it  is  not  only  dictated  by  kindness,  but  by 
justice. 

Now,  what  did  the  United  States  do  to  the  negroes  who 
were  in  slavery  at  the  time  the  war  ended?  Why,  they 
turned  them  loose  to  shift  for  themselves.  The  old  law,  as 
enacted  by  the  Southern  people,  required  the  master  to  take 
care  of  his  slave,  to  feed  him  and  clothe  him  and  have  him 
doctored,  and  give  him  every  necessity  of  life,  and  if  he  did 
not  do  this,  he,  the  master,  was  punished  and  severely  pun- 
ished. The  United  States  repealed  all  that.  The  negroes  who 
were  then  grown  had  no  schooling.  They  had  no  business 
education.  They  knew  but  little  about  law  or  the  obligations 
of  contract;  and  yet,  remorselessly  and  cruelly  they  were 
by  the  federal  government  turned  loose  in  the  world  to 
shift  for  themselves.  It  is  no  wonder  they  died  by  the 
thousands  and  that  there  are  but  few  of  those  now  alive 
who  had  arrived  at  18  years  and  upwards  when  the  war  end- 


11 


ed  50  years  ago.  Of  the  few  who  grew  up  in  slavery  and 
who  yet  live,  they  have  a  just  claim  against  the  govern- 
ment that  ought  to  be  recognized  and  in  some  way  com- 
pensated. 

5. 

Pensions  for  the  Old  Confederates;  and  the  Old  Time  Negro 
Who  Grew  up  a  Slave. 

Now,  let  us  go  back  a  minute.  The  war  was  not  the  fault 
of  the  South.  It  was  an  honest  quarrel  about  the  right  of 
secession.  It  was  not  the  fault  of  the  South  that  this  question 
was  left  unsettled  in  the  constitution  of  the  United  States. 
Oceans  of  blood  had  to  be  shed  in  order  to  settle  that  dis- 
pute. It  was  not  the  fault  of  the  South  that  the  dispute 
came  on.  But  the  South  was  the  sufferer.  Her  direct  prop- 
erty loss  by  emancipation  and  otherwise  exceeded  four 
thousand  million  dollars.  Her  cities  and  houses  burned  and 
destroyed,  her  sons  killed  on  their  own  soil,  her  children 
left  orphans,  impoverished  and  suffering. 

The  government  has  paid  out  somewhere  around  five  or 
six  thousand  million  dollars  in  pensions  to  the  soldiers  who 
fought  on  one  side  of  that  honest  dispute  and  difference  of 
opinion  but  never  a  red  cent  to  the  Confederate  who,  equal- 
ly brave  and  just  as  honest,  fought  harder  because  his  task 
was  more  difficult. 

The  enormous  billions  that  have  been  paid  in  pensions  go 
mainly  to  the  Northern  people.  The  pensioner  gets  his 
money  and  spends  it  on  the  stores  and  in  any  location  of 
business  in  the  neighborhood  where  he  lives.  I  have  heard  it 
said  that  in  hundreds  of  counties  at  the  North  the  pensions 
paid  by  the  federal  government  once  or  twice  a  year  amount 
to  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  where  the 
county  is  large  and  the  pension  roll  is  heavy,  and  thus  is  an 
enormous  boon  not  only  to  the  pensioner  himself,  but  to 
the  nighborhoods  and  county  where  he  lives. 

Through  the  tariff  system  of  taxation,  the  South  pays 
her  part  of  this.  Probably  one  third  of  all  the  pension  mon- 
ey paid  to  the  federal  soldiers  comes  out  of  Southern  pock- 
ets. 

Now  bear  in  mind  that  our  Southern  or  Confederate  sol- 


12 


diers  have  been  drawing  pensions  to  a  considerable  extent. 
But  they  draw  them  from  the  Southern  states.  In  not  one 
solitary  cent  do  the  Northern  states  share  that  burden  with 
the  people  of  the  South.  It  all  falls  on  the  Southern  states. 
I  do  not  know  whether  our  own  pride  would  let  us  accept 
or  not,  but  it  is  a  pity  that  the  North  has  never  done  any- 
thing or  offered  anything  for  the  living  Confederate,  as 
the  martyred  McKinley  did  for  the  dead  Confederate  sol- 
dier. 

The  emancipation  of  the  negroes  threw  the  burden  of 
their  government  and  uplift  on  the  people  of  the  South. 
Our  poor  funds  and  charity  funds  take  care  of  the  negroes 
just  like  they  do  of  the  white  people.  But  outside  of  that 
the  white  people  have  to  pay  in  taxes  enormous  sums  for 
the  education  of  the  negroes  in  the  public  schools.  Some 
excellent  people  at  the  North  have  endowed  colleges  for 
higher  education  among  the  negroes,  and  in  that  way  have 
reached  a  few,  and  a  very  few,  but  it  is  only  what  is  perhaps 
by  a  misnomer  called  the  better  class  of  negroes  that  gets 
any  benefit  from  it.  The  great  mass  of  the  laboring  ne- 
groes, the  negro  that  plows  and  hoes,  gets  none  of  that 
Northern  money,  and  no  benefit  from  it.  It  is  the  big- 
hearted,  generous,  friendly,  philanthropic  and  charitable 
Southern  white  man  that  puts  his  hands  in  his  pocket  and 
pays  his  taxes  that  are  used  to  educate  the  common  negro 
boys  and  girls  in  the  public  schools  throughout  the  South, 
and  I  feel  warranted  in  saying  that  a  fair  estimate  of  what 
the  white  people  of  the  South  have  paid  in  actual  dollars 
and  cents  for  the  schooling  of  negro  children  of  the  South 
since  emancipation,  the  Southern  white  men  paying  it  out  of 
their  own  pockets,  and  Southern  white  women  and  chil- 
dren of  estates  of  those  who  have  died,  when  added  to- 
gether will  make  one  hundred  million  dollars  or  more  paid 
in  actual  cash  by  the  Southern  people  for  the  education  of 
colored  children. 

Now  what  is  the  conclusion?  Why,  it  is  that  what  the 
United  States  government  ought  to  do  in  this  good  day  and 
time  when  the  angel  of  peace  is  smiling  over  our  land  from 
Canada  to  the  Gulf  and  from  New  England  to  California, 
is  that  the  Southern  states  ought  to  be  relieved  from  pay- 


13 


ing  pensions  to  Confederate  soldiers,  and  let  the  federal  gov- 
ernment come  to  the  front  and  assume  the  payment  of  the 
pensions  of  Confederate  soldiers,  paying  the  money  to  the 
states  and  let  the  states  disburse  it  to  the  old  Confederates 
as  heretofore ;  and  then  let  our  great  government,  impelled 
by  the  same  sense  of  justice,  pay  a  pension  to  every  col- 
ored person  now  surviving — there  are  probably  not  over 
one  hundred  thousand  of  them  now  living — who  was  a  slave 
at  the  date  of  Lincoln's  emancipation  proclamation  and  18 
years  of  age  at  that  time,  whether  man  or  woman. 

Don't  think  that  this  proposition  is  unreasonable  just  be- 
cause it  is  new.  I  make  it  on  my  own  suggestion,  and  no 
human  being  other  than  myself  is  in  any  way  responsible 
for  it.  The  entire  expense  would  hardly  add  ten  per  cent 
to  the  present  federal  pension  roll;  and  the  national  bal- 
ance sheet  will  stand  better  at  the  judgment  day,  if  this 
honest  obligation  to  old  Confederates  and  ex-slaves  has  been 
admitted  and  duly  paid.  It  is  absolutely  right  in  law  and 
in  fact.  It  may  take  time  and  it  may  take  agitation,  but 
it  ought  not  to  be  long  before  all  men  who  love  God  and 
their  country  will  say  it  is  right  and  an  effort  in  the  direc- 
tion mentioned  be  crowned  with  success. 

The  American  people  have  had  a  glorious  history,  and  they 
have  a  still  more  glorious  destiny.  The  consolation  in  the 
minds  of  us  old  veterans  is  that  when  the  veterans  leave  the 
priceless  heritage  of  their  deeds  to  the  present  and  coming 
generations,  our  country  is  in  the  hands  of  a  body  of  glor- 
ious young  men,  worthy  to  preserve  our  liberties  and  ad- 
vance the  destinies  of  our  country,  but  of  all  other  things 
that  the  United  States  can  do  and  ought  to  do,  the  plainest 
as  to  the  fundamental  right  and  truth  at  the  bottom  of  the 
proposition,  and  the  most  fraught  with  the  fruits  of  kind- 
ness and  benefit  that  is  in  the  reach  of  our  government  is  to 
promptly  do  justice  on  this  pension  problem  in  the  manner 
I  have  stated. 

6. 

The  Bugle  Call. 

And  now  at  parting  we  in  our  hearts  go  back  to  the  bugle 
call  and  the  tented  field. 


14 


''The  story  and  the  glory 
Of  the  men  who  wore  the  gray, 
Who  have  forever  clung, 
With  a  love  that  will  not  die 
To  the  memories  of  our  past. 
Who  are  patient  and  who  wait; 
True  and  faithful  to  the  last. 

'Till  the  children  of  our  foes 
Shall  be  proud  and  glad  to  claim, 
And  to  write  upon  one  scroll 
Every  dear  and  deathless  name 
On  our  Southern  Muster  Roll." 


15 


■     '  v., 

1'  *  " 


5572 


